Star Trek: Picard: Second Shelf - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Una McCormack is the author of ten previous Star Trek novels: The Lotus Flower (part of The Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine trilogy), Hollow Men, The Never-Ending Sacrifice, Brinkmanship, The Missing, the New York Times bestseller The Crimson Shadow, Enigma Tales, The Way to the Stars, the acclaimed USA TODAY bestseller The Last Best Hope, and Wonderlands. She is also the author of five Doctor Who novels from BBC Books: The King’s Dragon, The Way Through the Woods, Royal Blood, Molten Heart, and All Flesh Is Grass. She has written numerous short stories and audio dramas. She lives with her family in Cambridge, England. 

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Chapter 1

1

Lieutenant Commander Raffaela Musiker was a whole new woman. Clean, poised, ready for action. Ready for something new—although the jury was out on what that something new might be. But history—whether public or private—sometimes has its own designs. Lays traps for the unwary. Guides you back to places you thought you’d long since left behind. Raffi Musiker didn’t believe in fate, or destiny, but the upshot of this story is that they might well believe in you.

Raffi was in France. In Paris. She’d been here once before, a lifetime ago, when she had been a completely different woman. Young, and in love, and not yet a wife or a mother. She wasn’t young now, nor was she a wife any longer, and she doubted the extent to which she had ever been a mother. But she was, at least, in love, and perhaps this was what allowed Paris to work its charms on her. Stepping out of the public transporter near the Gare du Nord, she clamped down her first impressions—of the pressing crowds, the noise, the crush—and allowed the city to spend the next couple of days ravishing her. Marveled at the light and the gardens. Felt the weight of history. Saw small trinkets she might get for a grandkid—if such a thing were ever to be allowed to enter this new life of hers—and instead picked up kitsch for Seven. A tiny Eiffel Tower. An “I ? Paris” T-shirt. Boxes of chocolate. She missed Seven, and wished she was here. At the Arc de Triomphe, she walked slowly around, counting off the twelve avenues that radiated outward, almost overcome by the choices that lay ahead. A whole new lease on life.

What do I do now? What do I do next? Where the hell do I go…?

She chose coffee and patisserie, and, for the moment at least, less drama. The whole point of coming on this trip was to make a decision, wasn’t it? About what to do next. About the person she was going to be, now that the old one didn’t exist any longer.

On the morning of her third day in the city of light, Raffi picked up the flyer she was using for the rest of the trip and began her journey south and east toward La Barre. The summer had been hot and now, in September, the fields were looking yellow and tired. The harvest would soon begin. She arrived at the house midafternoon, stepping out of the cool scrubbed air of her all-new flyer to hit a wall of heat, the kind so heavy you might have thought someone was messing with the gravity. A woman was walking toward her: dark-haired and perhaps a little older than Raffi. Hard to guess, sometimes, with Romulans.

“Hey,” said Raffi, uncertainly. They didn’t know each other well—although they knew a great deal about each other. Raffi knew that Laris had once been Tal Shiar. With JL, she had helped Laris escape them and get to Earth. Raffi knew, too (and perhaps this could be seen in the lines and shadows that were settling on the other woman’s face), that Laris was recently widowed.

“Hello,” said Laris, folding her arms in front of her. “How was the trip?”

“Fine,” said Raffi. “It’s hotter than I expected. I thought Europe was meant to be temperate. Know what I mean?”

A small smile flickered over the other woman’s face. “It’ll rain tonight.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m sure. Let me take your bag.”

Laris hoisted up the bag and led her inside.

“Where’s JL?” said Raffi.

“The lord of the manor,” said Laris, “is out with his dog. His—”

“—damn dog,” said Raffi, with her.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Laris. “I love the beast. But I might wish he was self-cleaning.”

“Robotics,” agreed Raffi. “Daystrom’s missing a trick there.”

Laris’s smile almost became a laugh. Almost. A start. Something to build on.

They went into the kitchen—a cool stone room that managed to combine rustic simplicity with an air of quiet and sustained age—and Raffi took a seat, as directed, at the table. She watched Laris move around. There was a slight hesitation to everything she did, an air of distraction, perhaps, or the habits arising from the presence of another.

“Now where’d you put the damn tea strainer…” she muttered to herself. “Huh. I’d never have guessed.”

Mint tea; refreshing in the heat. They sat at the kitchen table, trying to jump-start a conversation, until Raffi heard a clatter of claws on the flagstones outside the open door. The dog (Number One, if Raffi remembered correctly; oh, but how droll of you, JL) launched into the kitchen like a low-slung, short-haired, snub-nosed missile. Found his target, unerringly, and scrambled into Laris’s lap.

“Great soft lump,” she said lovingly, scratching between his ears. “Daft old thing.” The creature’s tongue lolled out and he looked up at her in adoration.

Footsteps on the path; a shadow in the doorway—and there was JL, stepping inside his family home, a whole new man these days. Raffi rose from her chair, and his face crinkled into a smile at the sight of her. Great soft lump, thought Raffi, moving over to greet him. Daft old thing.

“Raffi,” he said warmly, drawing her into an embrace, which she clumsily returned. “It is so very good to have you here at last.”

“Nice to get here at last.”

“Laris,” he said, eyeing the other woman anxiously. “All well?”

“All’s well,” she said, almost impatiently. “Don’t fuss.”

There was a moment’s awkward silence. Raffi put down her cup. “You know, JL,” she said, “I’ve been here almost an hour and I haven’t had a glass of wine.”

Wine was brought, along with cheese and bread. By some steady and well-established process, this refreshment turned into a bigger but unfussy evening meal, and Raffi had the quiet but undeniable pleasure of watching JL sharply instructed on the correct assembly of a green salad. They moved from the kitchen to an outside terrace that gave a view out across JL’s vineyards. His ancestral lands. Imagine living in a place with so much history, Raffi thought. History to which your own family was so deeply connected. There was plenty of wine now, although Raffi was careful to temper her intake. A new woman, remember. Clean, and dry enough. At the end of the meal came a crème brûlée that Raffi knew would live long in her memory. After this was finished, and contemplated, Laris stood up.

“Oh well,” she said with a sigh. “Table won’t clear itself.”

“Need some help?” said Raffi, making to rise from her chair.

Laris, piling up plates, shook her head. “Number One’ll keep me company. You stay and catch up with his lordship.” And, with the dog trotting behind her, she went back into the kitchen. Raffi waited until she was out of earshot.

“How is she doing?” she said.

“Not well,” admitted JL. “She and Zhaban were together a long time. Sacrificed their lives in order to be together.”

Raffi, whose own losses had—to a great extent—been self-inflicted, pondered what this...